


Succor

by CoolDoggo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autistic Keith (Voltron), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Stimming, adult autism, nonverbal, shutdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 04:11:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15987362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoolDoggo/pseuds/CoolDoggo
Summary: Keith has a bad day. Everything's stressful, everything's loud, everything's too much. Just an awful day for no reason other than everything. Good thing Allura knows just what to do.





	Succor

**Author's Note:**

> I...really truly 100% did not intend to turn this into an autistic Keith fic. I just wanted to write something silly where Keith was upset and Allura reads to him because he finds her voice soothing and it's calming for him. 
> 
> Well, yeah. One thing turned into another and now we've got this. :') 
> 
> Also I picture them as a bit older in this fic, like mid-20's or so. I just want more stuff with adults who are autistic and have these sorts of struggles, and who have people who are supportive. :((( 
> 
> Pls be kind. /)(\

Allura could tell it was one of those days, a day that Keith woke up on the wrong side of the bed and everything from that point on had been a downward spiral of misery for him. She can tell by the way he closes the door to their apartment a bit too aggressively, not quite an angry slam but definitely not gentle. He’s got his jaw clenched, and his eyes are slightly squinted, a thing he tends to do when he’s busy focusing on not lashing out on whatever poor soul happens to look at him the wrong way. Judging by the way he’s rubbing his fingers with his thumb, it was an especially stressful day for him. Oh dear, her poor Keith. These signs of impending doom might be invisible for any average person to pick up on, but after being his partner for quite some time and living with him for a few years, Allura considered herself, for all intents and purposes, a Keith professional.

Keith throws off his shoes and jacket, not even bothering to put them away neatly, and throws himself onto the end of the couch opposite to her and immediately curls up.

“Bad day?” Allura asks. Keith’s response is half way between a grunt and a _yes_.

“Are you in the mood to do something about it, or do you just want to sit around and mope?” That might sound condescending to the average person, but sometimes, usually, Keith just genuinely wanted to be left alone and mope to himself like some kind of moody teenager for a bit. Allura didn’t understand. Wouldn’t it be more productive to actually do something about it? Be a little proactive perhaps? It was one of those things she just couldn’t fathom about her boyfriend, and probably would never be able to. At this point, she just accepts it. They had argued enough about it in the past anyhow. It’s just, he was always willing to listen to her rant and rave when she was upset, always helped her through some more difficult points in her life, brought her down from her panicked, workaholism induced frenzies. She longed to do the same for him, to provide him with what he so eagerly provided her. The rare times Keith actually came to her for help and support? Oh she treasured those moments, however guilty her happiness and joy made her feel over such things.

All Keith does is grab a throw pillow and make some unintelligible angry sounding noise into it. She huffs to herself, slightly frustrated. So, this is what they were doing today, huh? Would it kill him to actually communicate like a normal person when he was upset? Allura lets out a sigh, her frustration melting into sympathy. He dealt with things differently than she did. When he really felt bad, Keith just didn’t talk. Couldn't’ talk, wouldn’t talk, she didn’t know, and as frustrating as it was for her, it was something she had learned to get used to.

“I’ll leave you alone then. You know where I’ll be if you need me.” She gets up, and before she leaves, she gently kisses the top of his head. Allura can’t see his face, but she just knows he’s doing that little embarrassed smile but not really thing he does when he feels loved. With how he is right now, his happiness will be gone before he even realizes it was there, but it was something at least.

A few hours pass, and by the time dinner rolls around, Keith looks significantly worse off. He no longer looks anxious, he looks downright distraught. Usually he was fine after a few hours of a good mope by his lonesome, but clearly this wasn’t the case today. Just looking at him was making her feel stressed, not that he was doing anything wrong or she felt threatened, but she could just _feel_ the anxiety radiating from him and that alone was enough to upset her for a multitude of reasons.

While they eat, or more like, while she eats and he just uncomfortably plays with the fork, Keith doesn’t say a word, despite all of Allura’s best attempts at trying to get _something_ out of him. Really? Not even the slightest bit of verbal displeasure?

Yeah no, it was definitely time for her to intervene, whether he would accept her help or not.

Luckily, she felt pretty confident he would. They’ve been together long enough that they trusted each other to know when they needed one to back off from the other, and when to gently nudge. Right now, Allura felt that Keith needed a gentle nudge.

They clean up in silence, and before Keith has the opportunity slink away to wherever he was going to go hide, Allura gently grabs his hand and pulls him back toward her. “You’ve had enough time by yourself. Come sit with me for a bit, okay? We don’t have to talk.”

Keith looks like he wants to say something in protest, or at least make some displeased noise, and Allura briefly feels hope that maybe things haven’t gotten as bad as she suspects they’ve gotten. Her hope quickly dies off when he just gives her a defeated look and resigns himself to being lead to their living room couch. Allura sits down first, and when Keith doesn’t follow suit, she pulls him down into her lap.

Of course, he doesn’t bother adjusting himself into a more comfortable position, he just lays on her like some kind of badly positioned child, so all Allura can do is say with a bit of laugh, “You’re making this so awkward! Go get comfortable. I’m not comfortable like this and I know you aren’t either!”

Despite how awful and out of it he may be feeling right now, Keith still has it in him to be a bit of a jerk. He purposely positions himself so that they’re even more uncomfortable, and all Allura can do is let out a rather exasperated sigh. She knows he’s trying to joke with her, to make her not worry, but she doesn’t find it entertaining at all, especially when he was absolutely not fine. Keith could be witty, hilarious even if dry and deadpan humor was your thing, and then other times? He did shit like this and she really didn’t understand how this was supposed to be amusing in any capacity. She felt they spoke different languages at times, the way he acted being downright strange, but at the end of the day, it’s one of the many things she loved about him, however annoying and bothersome it could be at times. (Plus, it’s not like he was any stranger to thinking she was some kind of weirdo too. He could be _quite_ vocal about it after all.)

Eventually, they manage to get into a comfortable position on the couch. Keith is cradled up against Allura’s chest, his ear pressed against her heart. She’s got him softly wrapped up in her arms, and they sit like that, with her gently running her hands through his hair. Neither of them speak, but the silence is comforting, especially for him. She doesn’t know if Keith’s speech has returned yet, or when it will return if it hasn’t, and now that he’s finally started to somewhat relax after what she can only assume has been an extremely bad day for him, she’s certainly not going to risk undoing all the progress by saying whatever nonsense couples say to each other in times like these. She’ll sit here, petting his hair and holding him for however long he needs.

Compared to earlier, Keith was practically soup in Allura’s arms. It’s a relief in all honesty considering much tension he was holding before.

“...Read to me?” Keith eventually whispers out of nowhere. It startles Allura at first, having not expecting him to say anything after sitting in silence for so long. No matter how much she’s witnessed it over the years, it always startles her when Keith randomly blurts stuff out after hours upon hours of total silence no matter how quiet his voice is and how short his sentences are. Once the initial shock wears off, it’s always a sign of relief. It meant the worst was over, that Keith was coming out of these episodes of _I am utterly overwhelmed and everything is too much_ , and soon he’d be back to his regular self.

“Your wish is my command,” She replies. Maybe it was weird that they had copies of the same two books located in random, accessible spots throughout their house, sometimes multiples in the same room, but it was precisely for moments like these. When Allura was going nuts and was near inconsolable because of how much she managed to work he anxiety up, Keith would sit her down and read to her. When Keith was overwhelmed and overstimulated, Allura would read to him if he so wished. They kept the books scattered around the house so they could easily grab them no matter where they ended up.

Allura leans closer to the coffee table so she can grab Keith’s book, taking caution not to disturb him too much. His book was some silly sci-fi children’s novel he apparently read over and over again all throughout his elementary and middle school years. She’s read the beginning of it so much to him that it’s pretty much etched into her memory. Does she know how it ends? Absolutely not, but she can probably recite the first few chapters in her sleep, and she has absolutely no doubt Keith can do the same for her book.

Within the first few minutes of her reading the opening passages, she feels Keith practically melt into her. She has no idea if Keith is actually processing any of the story or if her voice is simply just background noise, but that’s besides the point. It’s just soothing for him to listen to. By the time she nears the end of that first short chapter, she can feel him rubbing his cheek against the fabric of her shirt over and over again. She can’t help but smile. It’s absolutely delightful when he does that, and she wished she got to experience it more often than she does. Often enough she would catch him doing various subtle, repetitive motions, but those were usually a bad sign. It meant he was stressed and was quickly veering into _it’s about to be a super bad time_ territory. However, shortly after they moved in together about two or three years prior, she discovered he does entirely different ones when he feels good. Out of all the little things she’s discovered about him since they met, that had to have been amongst her favorite.

The only downside? He will absolutely stop the minute he realizes he’s doing it and get all embarrassed. Allura loves when he does those little things, so she’s learned to keep her mouth shut and pretends she doesn’t notice just so he’ll keep doing them. This time is certainly no exception, and she continues reading to him as if she’s not about to burst with how happy this little thing he does makes her.

By the time she nears the third chapter, she realizes that he’s stopped. She peers down to check on him only to discover that he’s...fallen asleep, in her arms, curled up on her lap. It’s a little past eight, and normally she wouldn’t condone naps at such an hour, but this is too precious, even for her to resist. Suddenly, she understands how Keith feels when Kosmo falls asleep in his lap, how he refuses to move for anything, even death itself, in fear of waking up and disturbing his canine companion. The grim reaper could come right now and threaten her, and she absolutely wouldn’t budge. Her beloved was sleeping her arms!

Keith’ll probably wake up on his own within the next half hour anyway, so she doesn’t seem the harm in indulging herself for a bit. She carefully sets down the book, and her hands immediately find themselves in Keith’s hair.  What can she say? It’s irresistible. She loves playing with it, and he loves when she does it so much he doesn’t even try to hide it.

The corners of her lips curl into a small smile, and she wonders just how aware he is, or if he’s really truly knocked out. It’s tempting to whisper to him all the sickenly sweet declarations of her love and adoration for him, the ones that he rolls his eyes at and scowls at and makes fun of her for.

She opens her mouth for a moment, pauses, before she decides to just go for it.

“I hope you know how much I love you, my dearest. When you let me hold you like this, I feel as if I’ve got the universe in my arms, but maybe I do. You’re just was wondrous as the universe.”

Allura can’t help but giggle slightly as the words escape. Somehow, this feels even more scandalous than when they’re dirty talking each other. Should Keith be awake enough to hear what she’s saying right now, he certainly would be ten times more scandalized by this than any perverted comment Allura could possibly throw his way. His entire face would probably get way too red, and he’d pout so much. It’s very tempting to test out her theory the next time they decide to fool around.

There’s no response or reaction from Keith, not even a near invisible facial twitch for her to so expertly pick up on. He’s definitely out for the count. It’s not like it’s entirely unexpected, he had a tendency to be exhausted after especially bad days. In her own way, she can relate. Still, when nearly an hour passes and he’s still dead asleep in her arms, she figures it’s time to try and get him to bed so this doesn’t turn into a four hour, late night nap.

Before waking him up, she moves the bangs out of his face and leans over to give him a small kiss on the forehead. “Hey, Keith, dear, wanna go to bed? You’ve been sleeping for a while,” She says softly to him as she gently nudges him awake. His face scrunches up slightly as his eyes flutter open, like he’s irritated that she dare wake him up, and then half a second later he simply looks confused.

“Was I sleeping?” He finally mumbles.

“For nearly an hour!” She playfully scolds, only to immediately regret it because Keith’s eyes widen ever-so-slightly slightly like they do when he’s afraid he’s done something wrong. “No, no, it’s fine!” She quickly says, “I held you in my arms the entire time and I quite enjoyed it. Who do you think let you sleep for so long at this hour?”

All he does in response is give her a cheeky little grin. “How nice of you to let me sleep in your arms.”

Yep, that’s the Keith she knows. Aside from whatever physical and mental fatigue he felt from his episode, she’s glad he’s feeling better.

“Really though, go to bed. I know you’re tired so don’t wait up for me. I’ll be there in a bit.”

Keith simply repositions himself so now he’s sitting up on Allura’s lap. It’s a bit tentative, but soon enough he wraps his arms around her, holding her tight up against him. She returns the hug, and she smiles when she feels him plant an awkward shy kiss on her cheek.

“I love you, okay?” He says. “I like having you around. It’s nice.” _Thank you for being there for me._

“I know, my dearest, I love you too, now go to bed.” _You’re welcome, anything you need._

If there was one way to get Keith to run off, it was too call him embarrassing pet names. It was foolproof and worked every time. Immediately, he detaches himself from her, gives her a look of betrayal, scampers away to lick his embarrassed wounds in the privacy of their own bedroom. He really didn’t deal with affection well, and as sad as that made her at times, Allura had zero qualms about using that to her advantage.

Before he exits their living room, he turns around and gives her the poutiest scowl she’s ever seen, and she can’t help but laugh.

Really, she hopes he never changes, weird quirks, difficulties, and everything else that made him who he was.

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not add to this modern Kallura AU. At the very least, I want to write a sister fic to this where Keith helps out Allura. ^^
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading this!
> 
> Comments are very appreciated, but completely optional. :) If you leave me a comment, please know that I've read it and hold it very dear to my heart! Replying is just extremely difficult for me orz;;


End file.
